The Struggle for Dignity and Inclusion of People with Disabilities in Public Higher Education

an Experience of Building Accessibility from the Perspective of Inclusive Management in Northeast Brazil

Abstract

In the present article, the enrollment of a student with visual impairment in the Undergraduate Pedagogy course of a federal public university in the northeast of Brazil was the motto for the philosophical and methodological reflections raised around the accessibility actions foreseen to achieve her effective social inclusion in Higher Education. In a journey full of tensions and possibilities, contextualized in a community culturally installed in a historical process of social exclusion and integration, based on the medical model of disability, the notion of the dignity of the human person and the consequent struggles waged for the glimpse of the achievement of inclusive goals gave the university characters involved (managers, teachers, technicians and students) the need to reflect collectively on the real location of the social value of human beings with disabilities, and revisit the relationship between institutional duties and social and fundamental rights evidenced by the presence of the student in question. From an exploratory research, of qualitative approach, it was generated an experience report that sought to expose the student's point of view and also reflect on the role played by the management of the undergraduate course, which was left to assume almost alone the role of resistance in the intermediation between the legitimate demands of the student and the block of discourse and power represented by the institution. Among the results found, the presence of attitudinal, communicational and other barriers stood out, both among the students and in the highest levels of institutional decision and power. The conclusions of the study point to the need for a permanent program of sensitization and university formation in favor of the construction of an inclusive conscience, according to which the notion of value existing in the principle of the dignity of the human being may be pedagogically unveiled, in order to overcome stigmas and stereotypes, and the flagrant disrespect committed against the person with disability. Finally, it was intended to offer methodological subsidies for the pedagogical adoption of accessible practices from the university management, being possible to experiment other locus of pedagogical action and involve support to different characters in favor of social inclusion.